Problem reinstalling winME

[mm]

Is there something about installing winME that causes it to freeze
exactly 10% in to the Copy Files portion of the install. Or is it my
harddrive, and what should I do about it?


I banged my IBM Thjnkpad 600E laptop really hard, and winME won't
start anymore, but DOS will, from a rescue disk**. Whether I should
have or not, I ran DOS scandisk for many hours, and until today, kept
finding 1 or 2 or 8 clusters that scandisk disabled, although for the
last few passes, they were just clusters that it thought ran slow and
it expected to fail soon.

During all of this, I used a recovery disk to start DOS, and on about
5 occasions then used a legitimate ME update CD to try to install ME.
Everything went fine during the install until the middle of the Copy
Files portion, and then every time, always at the 10% mark, TEN
percent, the install freezes. The CD light goes off but the HD light
stays on, without blinking at all, and I can even hear the sound of
the hard drive, buzz for 2 seconds, silence for two seconds (three
times) then silent for 5 seconds and start again. The buzz is more
like a boozz. The only way to stop this is to turn off the
computer.

Other than running scandisk, which each time marks a few clusters not
to be used, except this last time when it found none to complain
about, i haven't used the laptop for anything, so maybe there is a bad
spot on the HD that scandisk can't find??? and maybe the install gets
to the same bad spot always somewhere in the 10% portion of copy
files. Does that seem likely?

Should I delete some files I can do without, so that there will be
more good space, and then I might see it not freeze until 15 or 20%?
but how can I make sure the OS stores files on this newly available
space, instead of where it is storing them now? What can I do?


**Wouldn't it be better in this situation if winME provided a method
to start DOS without a rescue disk, straight from the hard drive?
That's how win3.1, 95 and 98 worked.

If you are inclined to email me
for some reason, remove NOPSAM

 

[Mike M]

Was this a clean install or a reinstall of Win Me over itself? Do you see
any error code? See MS KB 270593 - ""Error SU0325" When Windows Me Setup
Is 10 Percent Complete" (http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=270593) for a
possible explanation of the problem you are seeing. It sound likely that
one or other of the various cab files could not be copied to your PC
resulting in a damaged copy on the hard disk. Probably due to the CD
being scratched, dirty or otherwise damaged but just possibly due to some
other hardware problem or even a virus. The KB explains how to determine
the file in question and makes some suggestions as to how to proceed.
--
Mike Maltby
mike.maltby@gmail.com


mm <NOPSAMmm2005@bigfoot.com> wrote:

> Is there something about installing winME that causes it to freeze
> exactly 10% in to the Copy Files portion of the install. Or is it my
> harddrive, and what should I do about it?
>
>
> I banged my IBM Thjnkpad 600E laptop really hard, and winME won't
> start anymore, but DOS will, from a rescue disk**. Whether I should
> have or not, I ran DOS scandisk for many hours, and until today, kept
> finding 1 or 2 or 8 clusters that scandisk disabled, although for the
> last few passes, they were just clusters that it thought ran slow and
> it expected to fail soon.
>
> During all of this, I used a recovery disk to start DOS, and on about
> 5 occasions then used a legitimate ME update CD to try to install ME.
> Everything went fine during the install until the middle of the Copy
> Files portion, and then every time, always at the 10% mark, TEN
> percent, the install freezes. The CD light goes off but the HD light
> stays on, without blinking at all, and I can even hear the sound of
> the hard drive, buzz for 2 seconds, silence for two seconds (three
> times) then silent for 5 seconds and start again. The buzz is more
> like a boozz. The only way to stop this is to turn off the
> computer.
>
> Other than running scandisk, which each time marks a few clusters not
> to be used, except this last time when it found none to complain
> about, i haven't used the laptop for anything, so maybe there is a bad
> spot on the HD that scandisk can't find??? and maybe the install gets
> to the same bad spot always somewhere in the 10% portion of copy
> files. Does that seem likely?
>
> Should I delete some files I can do without, so that there will be
> more good space, and then I might see it not freeze until 15 or 20%?
> but how can I make sure the OS stores files on this newly available
> space, instead of where it is storing them now? What can I do?
>
>
> **Wouldn't it be better in this situation if winME provided a method
> to start DOS without a rescue disk, straight from the hard drive?
> That's how win3.1, 95 and 98 worked.
>
> If you are inclined to email me
> for some reason, remove NOPSAM

 

[Mart]

As you already submitted this post (or very similar) to the
win98.gen_discussion group about a week ago ("Followup on my winME laptop" -
12/28/2007 @ 17:21 GMT) and you didn't appear to follow-up the three replies
posted, I can only ASS-U-ME that you'd forgotten where you posted it <g>

One reply (re)directed you back here to the WinMe General NG, but the other
two both identified the most likely cause - a damaged hard drive - and
suggested various tests you could conduct to confirm it, suggesting that you
first try to recover (back-up) your important data before you lose it.
(Sadly, my guess it that time is way beyond even that option!)

Mike M (in the above post) has suggested another possibility, but judging by
the number of (continually) failing clusters, noises, etc. my personal
experience suggests that your HDD has finally failed completely and no
amount of scandisking, formatting or FDISKing is going to make it better.

Replacement 2.5 inch IDE HDD's are not too expensive (although their
capacity *may* be somewhat larger than the existing one! - 10x +) and should
be considered against dumping the complete laptop PC as beyond economical
repair.

Mart



"mm" <NOPSAMmm2005@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:i62qn3tq3n05h8118fl4b91erlhi1orkuc@4ax.com...
> Is there something about installing winME that causes it to freeze
> exactly 10% in to the Copy Files portion of the install. Or is it my
> harddrive, and what should I do about it?
>
>
> I banged my IBM Thjnkpad 600E laptop really hard, and winME won't
> start anymore, but DOS will, from a rescue disk**. Whether I should
> have or not, I ran DOS scandisk for many hours, and until today, kept
> finding 1 or 2 or 8 clusters that scandisk disabled, although for the
> last few passes, they were just clusters that it thought ran slow and
> it expected to fail soon.
>
> During all of this, I used a recovery disk to start DOS, and on about
> 5 occasions then used a legitimate ME update CD to try to install ME.
> Everything went fine during the install until the middle of the Copy
> Files portion, and then every time, always at the 10% mark, TEN
> percent, the install freezes. The CD light goes off but the HD light
> stays on, without blinking at all, and I can even hear the sound of
> the hard drive, buzz for 2 seconds, silence for two seconds (three
> times) then silent for 5 seconds and start again. The buzz is more
> like a boozz. The only way to stop this is to turn off the
> computer.
>
> Other than running scandisk, which each time marks a few clusters not
> to be used, except this last time when it found none to complain
> about, i haven't used the laptop for anything, so maybe there is a bad
> spot on the HD that scandisk can't find??? and maybe the install gets
> to the same bad spot always somewhere in the 10% portion of copy
> files. Does that seem likely?
>
> Should I delete some files I can do without, so that there will be
> more good space, and then I might see it not freeze until 15 or 20%?
> but how can I make sure the OS stores files on this newly available
> space, instead of where it is storing them now? What can I do?
>
>
> **Wouldn't it be better in this situation if winME provided a method
> to start DOS without a rescue disk, straight from the hard drive?
> That's how win3.1, 95 and 98 worked.
>
> If you are inclined to email me
> for some reason, remove NOPSAM

 

[mm]

On Thu, 3 Jan 2008 17:06:18 -0000, "Mike M" <No_Spam@Corned_Beef.Only>
wrote:

>Was this a clean install or a reinstall of Win Me over itself? Do you see

Sorry. The laptop was sold with win98SE and then upgraded, probably
by the first owner, with ME. I was running ME, and most of it is
still there (It almost finishes starting, by itself, and even gets a
little further along in starting since I've run scandisk).

I'm trying to reinstall ME over itself.

>any error code?

Usually no error code, just freezing as described. But just now there
was teh SU0325 error code below. Cntl-alt-delete does nothing, no key
does anything, so I have to turn off the computer. Then scandisk
finds one directory error and maybe a lost cluster the next time I run
scandisk. The next time I try to reinstall ME, it asks if I am doing
an install after an interruption, or from the beginning, and I've
tried both choices.

> See MS KB 270593 - ""Error SU0325" When Windows Me Setup
>Is 10 Percent Complete" (http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=270593) for a

Wow, it never even occurred to me to search for a KB article with "10
percent" in it.

>possible explanation of the problem you are seeing. It sound likely that
>one or other of the various cab files could not be copied to your PC
>resulting in a damaged copy on the hard disk. Probably due to the CD
>being scratched, dirty or otherwise damaged

I thought about this and the CD is not "dirty" and has virtually no
scratches, but I did find what seemed like a little one just now
although it seemed to have a little scratch which I rubbed away with
my finger! Now how could a real scratch be rubbed away with a
finger?? --(I did once clean up a scratch on a Eudora CD by rubbing
it with old blue jeans. Old denim seems to be just the right thing
for polishing plastic. I once had a round one inch car thermometer,
the kind with a needle, and it had fallen off from its suction cup and
was on the floor with the dirt and stones for months, not moving most
of the time, but very scratched when I found it again, and I aimlessly
rubbed it for 15 or 30 minutes, and the improvement was amazing. So
that's two experiences with old denim. Although maybe some finer
quality of cotton cloth would work better with something finer.)

The "scratch" seems much smaller than scratches on other CD's that
work fine. But if it is damaging a file, how can I tell which file is
damaged???

I thought for a while that it was catalog.cab, because I couldn't
extract it, but then I learned it is not really a cab file.

Or where could I get substitute .cab files. I could try them four at
a time until the install worked. I have a valid key, that came with
the CD, so copying some of the files doesn't seem like a violation.

If it's the CD, that would account for why it stops in the same place.

>but just possibly due to some
>other hardware problem or even a virus. The KB explains how to determine
>the file in question and makes some suggestions as to how to proceed.

Thanks a million for your answer.

If you are inclined to email me
for some reason, remove NOPSAM

 

[mm]

On Thu, 3 Jan 2008 18:07:38 -0000, "Mart" <mart(NoSpam)@nospam.nospam>
wrote:

>As you already submitted this post (or very similar) to the
>win98.gen_discussion group about a week ago ("Followup on my winME laptop" -
>12/28/2007 @ 17:21 GMT) and you didn't appear to follow-up the three replies
>posted,

I'm planning to, but I didn't have anything to report back yet, and I
still don't really. I've been spending some time every day on this,
but it's slow going.

> I can only ASS-U-ME that you'd forgotten where you posted it <g>
>
>One reply (re)directed you back here to the WinMe General NG,

That's true, and I finally did that today, 6 days later. I would have
done it earlier, but I only have so much time, and I left a lot of
things on hold when I went out of town.

> but the other
>two both identified the most likely cause - a damaged hard drive - and
>suggested various tests you could conduct to confirm it, suggesting that you
>first try to recover (back-up) your important data before you lose it.

And I've been working on that too. It was my mistake and a bad
procedure to continue when I got back home to a) run scandisk, and b)
make one more attempt to reinstall ME, when I should have been only
trying to recover my data. Part of the reason is that: It may have
been a mistake, but when I was still out of the country, my goal was
to fix the computer so that I would have the use of it, and I really
needed it, both for business reasons and for social ones. I had little
alternative except to buy another laptop for a thousand or two
thousand dollars, and since my business venture wasn't panning out and
at that stage I was able to do most things by telephone anyhow, it
wasn't worth buying another one for the last 14 days.

And it wasn't until I ran scandisk the first time that I got even an
appproximate idea of how many clusters were damaged, and because time
is precious when out of the country, I left the computer running
scandisk while I went out for the day.

>(Sadly, my guess it that time is way beyond even that option!)

I don't know yet. It was only last night that I created what I'm
hoping will be a correct start-up ME CD, with USB support, and I
haven't tried it yet. It was only yesterday that I was able to buy a
bigger memory stick. So it is only today that I have the things I
need to get the data. (There have been a lot of other things I have
to do after being out of the country for several weeks.)

>Mike M (in the above post) has suggested another possibility, but judging by
>the number of (continually) failing clusters, noises, etc. my personal

Just ftr, while still out of the country, I did a total of about 10
passes with scandisk, and found almost all of the problems in the
first, second, and third pass, about 700 bad clusters (out of 1.5
million). After I got back, I then did 10 more passes at one time and
found only 8 clusters it said it expected would fail soon. Then I did
another 10 passes at one time, and then one pass twice more, and it
found no errors at all. That doesn't mean it will work even one more
day, but at least scandisk isn't finding more problems.

But I'm not going to do anymore scanning or installing until I try to
get the data off.

>experience suggests that your HDD has finally failed completely and no
>amount of scandisking, formatting or FDISKing is going to make it better.

Maybe not. But I like fixing things even more than I like having or
using things, so I'm going to see this thing to the bitter end, if
necessary.

>Replacement 2.5 inch IDE HDD's are not too expensive (although their
>capacity *may* be somewhat larger than the existing one! - 10x +) and should
>be considered against dumping the complete laptop PC as beyond economical
>repair.

I was in CompUSA and Best Buys, but I only saw one 2 1/2 drive, 160
gigs, for 150 dollars. And 120 gigs. Two of the newest models of
course. I'm sure I can find older, cheaper, and with lesss capacity
on ebay, but I have to learn more about what is compatible and what
isn't. Now they have PATA drives, and 3 months ago iirc they only had
SATA. I think I need IDE.
>
>Mart
>
>
>
>"mm" <NOPSAMmm2005@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
>news:i62qn3tq3n05h8118fl4b91erlhi1orkuc@4ax.com...
>> Is there something about installing winME that causes it to freeze
>> exactly 10% in to the Copy Files portion of the install. Or is it my
>> harddrive, and what should I do about it?
>>
>>
>> I banged my IBM Thjnkpad 600E laptop really hard, and winME won't
>> start anymore, but DOS will, from a rescue disk**. Whether I should
>> have or not, I ran DOS scandisk for many hours, and until today, kept
>> finding 1 or 2 or 8 clusters that scandisk disabled, although for the
>> last few passes, they were just clusters that it thought ran slow and
>> it expected to fail soon.
>>
>> During all of this, I used a recovery disk to start DOS, and on about
>> 5 occasions then used a legitimate ME update CD to try to install ME.
>> Everything went fine during the install until the middle of the Copy
>> Files portion, and then every time, always at the 10% mark, TEN
>> percent, the install freezes. The CD light goes off but the HD light
>> stays on, without blinking at all, and I can even hear the sound of
>> the hard drive, buzz for 2 seconds, silence for two seconds (three
>> times) then silent for 5 seconds and start again. The buzz is more
>> like a boozz. The only way to stop this is to turn off the
>> computer.
>>
>> Other than running scandisk, which each time marks a few clusters not
>> to be used, except this last time when it found none to complain
>> about, i haven't used the laptop for anything, so maybe there is a bad
>> spot on the HD that scandisk can't find??? and maybe the install gets
>> to the same bad spot always somewhere in the 10% portion of copy
>> files. Does that seem likely?
>>
>> Should I delete some files I can do without, so that there will be
>> more good space, and then I might see it not freeze until 15 or 20%?
>> but how can I make sure the OS stores files on this newly available
>> space, instead of where it is storing them now? What can I do?
>>
>>
>> **Wouldn't it be better in this situation if winME provided a method
>> to start DOS without a rescue disk, straight from the hard drive?
>> That's how win3.1, 95 and 98 worked.
>>
>> If you are inclined to email me
>> for some reason, remove NOPSAM
>


If you are inclined to email me
for some reason, remove NOPSAM

 

[Mart]

I guess that your PC does not have a floppy drive or rather, you were never
supplied with it when you acquired your Laptop - there are a couple of
options :- Try www.bootdisk.com and search for a suitable utility to make a
bootable CD or USB stick for your PC. Or, buy a USB floppy drive e.g. Sony
approx $10 and use the floppy boot disk.

DO NOT even attempt to 'over-install' WinMe on itself (especially if it had
previously been updated i.e. had all (or most) of the WinMe updates -
including IE6 - installed). You will end up with a "version soup" which will
cause you far more trouble than you have now!

Regarding a replacement hard drive: Not sure what capacity your original is,
but you should be able to pick up a (brand new) 40/60/80 Gb 2.5 inch IDE
(PATA) for about $20-30 (and that's converting from UK prices - and I live
in 'Rip-off Britain') - BUT be aware, your BIOS *may not* let you use
more than 8Gb of it. - However, it IS a solution and should not cause you a
problem.

If you do wish to Clean Install, remember to make a note of your 25 digit
ProductID code before you do anything else and take a look at (and
print-out) the cleanhd.txt file I mentioned in my previous reply to you some
months ago. You should also re-read my comments I posted then.

Judging by your reports of bad clusters, errors and noises, I think that you
are probably wasting your time (which - seemingly - you don't have much of)
in trying to 'repair' your hard drive.

Mart


"mm" <NOPSAMmm2005@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:9jmrn3l389apflev5ms9ro5r5f1lnhqp3e@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 3 Jan 2008 18:07:38 -0000, "Mart" <mart(NoSpam)@nospam.nospam>
> wrote:
>
>>As you already submitted this post (or very similar) to the
>>win98.gen_discussion group about a week ago ("Followup on my winME
>>laptop" -
>>12/28/2007 @ 17:21 GMT) and you didn't appear to follow-up the three
>>replies
>>posted,
>
> I'm planning to, but I didn't have anything to report back yet, and I
> still don't really. I've been spending some time every day on this,
> but it's slow going.
>
>> I can only ASS-U-ME that you'd forgotten where you posted it <g>
>>
>>One reply (re)directed you back here to the WinMe General NG,
>
> That's true, and I finally did that today, 6 days later. I would have
> done it earlier, but I only have so much time, and I left a lot of
> things on hold when I went out of town.
>
>> but the other
>>two both identified the most likely cause - a damaged hard drive - and
>>suggested various tests you could conduct to confirm it, suggesting that
>>you
>>first try to recover (back-up) your important data before you lose it.
>
> And I've been working on that too. It was my mistake and a bad
> procedure to continue when I got back home to a) run scandisk, and b)
> make one more attempt to reinstall ME, when I should have been only
> trying to recover my data. Part of the reason is that: It may have
> been a mistake, but when I was still out of the country, my goal was
> to fix the computer so that I would have the use of it, and I really
> needed it, both for business reasons and for social ones. I had little
> alternative except to buy another laptop for a thousand or two
> thousand dollars, and since my business venture wasn't panning out and
> at that stage I was able to do most things by telephone anyhow, it
> wasn't worth buying another one for the last 14 days.
>
> And it wasn't until I ran scandisk the first time that I got even an
> appproximate idea of how many clusters were damaged, and because time
> is precious when out of the country, I left the computer running
> scandisk while I went out for the day.
>
>>(Sadly, my guess it that time is way beyond even that option!)
>
> I don't know yet. It was only last night that I created what I'm
> hoping will be a correct start-up ME CD, with USB support, and I
> haven't tried it yet. It was only yesterday that I was able to buy a
> bigger memory stick. So it is only today that I have the things I
> need to get the data. (There have been a lot of other things I have
> to do after being out of the country for several weeks.)
>
>>Mike M (in the above post) has suggested another possibility, but judging
>>by
>>the number of (continually) failing clusters, noises, etc. my personal
>
> Just ftr, while still out of the country, I did a total of about 10
> passes with scandisk, and found almost all of the problems in the
> first, second, and third pass, about 700 bad clusters (out of 1.5
> million). After I got back, I then did 10 more passes at one time and
> found only 8 clusters it said it expected would fail soon. Then I did
> another 10 passes at one time, and then one pass twice more, and it
> found no errors at all. That doesn't mean it will work even one more
> day, but at least scandisk isn't finding more problems.
>
> But I'm not going to do anymore scanning or installing until I try to
> get the data off.
>
>>experience suggests that your HDD has finally failed completely and no
>>amount of scandisking, formatting or FDISKing is going to make it better.
>
> Maybe not. But I like fixing things even more than I like having or
> using things, so I'm going to see this thing to the bitter end, if
> necessary.
>
>>Replacement 2.5 inch IDE HDD's are not too expensive (although their
>>capacity *may* be somewhat larger than the existing one! - 10x +) and
>>should
>>be considered against dumping the complete laptop PC as beyond economical
>>repair.
>
> I was in CompUSA and Best Buys, but I only saw one 2 1/2 drive, 160
> gigs, for 150 dollars. And 120 gigs. Two of the newest models of
> course. I'm sure I can find older, cheaper, and with lesss capacity
> on ebay, but I have to learn more about what is compatible and what
> isn't. Now they have PATA drives, and 3 months ago iirc they only had
> SATA. I think I need IDE.
>>
>>Mart
>>
>>
>>
>>"mm" <NOPSAMmm2005@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
>>news:i62qn3tq3n05h8118fl4b91erlhi1orkuc@4ax.com...
>>> Is there something about installing winME that causes it to freeze
>>> exactly 10% in to the Copy Files portion of the install. Or is it my
>>> harddrive, and what should I do about it?
>>>
>>>
>>> I banged my IBM Thjnkpad 600E laptop really hard, and winME won't
>>> start anymore, but DOS will, from a rescue disk**. Whether I should
>>> have or not, I ran DOS scandisk for many hours, and until today, kept
>>> finding 1 or 2 or 8 clusters that scandisk disabled, although for the
>>> last few passes, they were just clusters that it thought ran slow and
>>> it expected to fail soon.
>>>
>>> During all of this, I used a recovery disk to start DOS, and on about
>>> 5 occasions then used a legitimate ME update CD to try to install ME.
>>> Everything went fine during the install until the middle of the Copy
>>> Files portion, and then every time, always at the 10% mark, TEN
>>> percent, the install freezes. The CD light goes off but the HD light
>>> stays on, without blinking at all, and I can even hear the sound of
>>> the hard drive, buzz for 2 seconds, silence for two seconds (three
>>> times) then silent for 5 seconds and start again. The buzz is more
>>> like a boozz. The only way to stop this is to turn off the
>>> computer.
>>>
>>> Other than running scandisk, which each time marks a few clusters not
>>> to be used, except this last time when it found none to complain
>>> about, i haven't used the laptop for anything, so maybe there is a bad
>>> spot on the HD that scandisk can't find??? and maybe the install gets
>>> to the same bad spot always somewhere in the 10% portion of copy
>>> files. Does that seem likely?
>>>
>>> Should I delete some files I can do without, so that there will be
>>> more good space, and then I might see it not freeze until 15 or 20%?
>>> but how can I make sure the OS stores files on this newly available
>>> space, instead of where it is storing them now? What can I do?
>>>
>>>
>>> **Wouldn't it be better in this situation if winME provided a method
>>> to start DOS without a rescue disk, straight from the hard drive?
>>> That's how win3.1, 95 and 98 worked.
>>>
>>> If you are inclined to email me
>>> for some reason, remove NOPSAM
>>
>
>
> If you are inclined to email me
> for some reason, remove NOPSAM

 

[mm]

the perils of everlasting
suffering. They are quite different with regard to all other things. They
are afraid of mere trifles they foresee them they feel them. And this same
man who spends so many days and nights in rage and despair for the loss of
office, or for some imaginary insult to his honour, is the very one who
knows without anxiety and without emotion that he will lose all by death. It
is a monstrous thing to see in the same heart and at the same time this
sensibility to trifles and this strange insensibility to the greatest
objects. It is an incomprehensible enchantment, and a supernatural slumber,
which indicates as its cause an all-powerful force.

There must be a strange confusion in the nature of man, that he should boast
of being in that state in which it seems incredible that a single individual
should be. However, experience has shown me so great a number of such
persons that the fact would be surprising, if we did not know that the
greater part of those who trouble themselves about the matter are
disingenuous and not, in fact, what they say. They are people who have heard
it said that it is the fashion to be thus daring. It is what they call
"shaking off the yoke," and they try to imitate this.

 

[Mike M]

present are our means the future
alone is our end. So we never live, but we hope to live and, as we are
always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so.

173. They say that eclipses foretoken misfortune, because misfortunes are
common, so that, as evil happens so often, they often foretell it whereas
if they said that they predict good fortune, they would often be wrong. They
attribute good fortune only to rare conjunctions of the heavens so they
seldom fail in prediction.

174. Misery.--Solomon and Job have best known and best spoken of the misery
of man the former the most fortunate, and the latter the most unfortunate
of men the former knowing the vanity of pleasures from experience, the
latter the reality of evils.

175. We know ourselves so little that many think they are about to die when
they are well, and many think they are well when they are near death,
unconscious of approaching fever, or of the abscess ready to form itself.

176. Cromwell was about to ravage all Christendom the royal family was
undone, and his own for ever established, save for a little grain of sand
which formed in his ureter. Rome herself was trembling under him but this
small piece of gravel having formed there, he is dead, his family cast down,
all is peaceful, and the king is restored.

177. Three hosts. Would he who had possessed the friendship of the King of
England, the King of Poland, and the Queen of Sweden, have believed he would
lack a refuge and shelter in the world?

178. Macrobius: on the innocents slain by

 

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here collected, and in which I have
followed somewhat after this order...

195. Before entering into the proofs of the Christian religion, I find it
necessary to point out the sinfulness of those men who live in indifference
to the search for truth in a matter which is so important to them, and which
touches them so nearly.

Of all their errors, this doubtless is the one which most convicts them of
foolishness and blindness, and in which it is easiest to confound them by
the first glimmerings of common sense and by natural feelings.

For it is not to be doubted that the duration of this life is but a moment
that the state of death is eternal, whatever may be its nature and that
thus all our actions and thoughts must take such different directions,
according to the state of that eternity, that it is impossible to take one
step with sense and judgement, unless we regulate our course by the truth of
that point which ought to be our ultimate end.

There is nothing clearer than this and thus, according to the principles of
reason, the conduct of men is wholly unreasonable, if they do not take
another course.

On this point, therefore, we condemn those who live without thought of the
ultimate end of life, who let themselves be guided by their own inclinations
and their own pleasures wi

 

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he said, "It is either in our
power or it is not." But he did not perceive that it is not in our power to
regulate the heart, and he was wrong to infer from this the fact that there
were some Christians.

468. No other religion has proposed to men to hate themselves. No other
religion, then, can please those who hate themselves, and who seek a Being
truly lovable. And these, if they had never heard of the religion of a God
humiliated, would embrace it at once.

469. I feel that I might not have been for the Ego consists in my thoughts.
Therefore I, who think, would not have been, if my mother had been killed
before I had life. I am not, then, a necessary being. In the same way I am
not eternal or infinite but I see plainly that there exists in nature a
necessary Being, eternal and infinite.

470. "Had I seen a miracle," say men, "I should become converted." How can
they be sure they would do a thing of the nature of which they are ignorant?
They imagine that this conversion consists in a worship of God which is like
commerce, and in a communion such as they picture to themselves. True
religion consists in annihilating self before that Universal Being, whom we
have so often provoked, and who can justly destroy us at any time in
recognising that we can do nothing without Him, and have deserved nothing
from Him but His displeasure. It consists in knowing that there is an
unconquerable opposition between us and God, and that without a mediator
there can be no communion with Him.

471. It is unjust that men should attach themselves to me, even though they
do it with pleasure and voluntarily. I should deceive those in whom I had
created this desire for I am not the end of any, and I have not the
wherewithal to s

 

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his awful vengeance on the poor
sinner, and the wretch is actually suffering the infinite weight and
power of his indignation, then will God call upon the whole universe to
behold that awful majesty and mighty power that is to be seen in it.
Isa. 33:12-14. "And the people shall be as the burnings of lime, as
thorns cut up shall they be burnt in the fire. Hear ye that are far off,
what I have done and ye that are near, acknowledge my might. The
sinners in Zion are afraid fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites,"
&c. Thus it will be with you that are in an unconverted state, if you
continue in it the infinite might, and majesty, and terribleness of the
omnipotent God shall be magnified upon you, in the ineffable strength of
your torments. You shall be tormented in the presence of the holy
angels, and in the presence of the Lamb and when you shall be in this
state of suffering, the glorious inhabitants of heaven shall go forth
and look on the awful spectacle, that they may see what the wrath and
fierceness of the Almighty is and when they have seen it, they will
fall down and adore that great power and majesty. Isa. 66:23,24. "And it
shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one
sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the
Lord. And they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men
that have transgressed against me for their worm shall not die, neither
shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring unto all
flesh."


It is everlasting wrath. It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness
and wrath of Almighty God one moment but you must suffer it to all
eternity. There will be no end to this exquisite horrible misery.

 

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soldiers, slaters. "He is a good
slater," says one, and, speaking of soldiers, remarks, "They are perfect
fools." But others affirm, "There is nothing great but war the rest of men
are good for nothing." We choose our callings according as we hear this or
that praised or despised in our childhood, for we naturally love truth and
hate folly. These words move us the only error is in their application. So
great is the force of custom that, out of those whom nature has only made
men, are created all conditions of men. For some districts are full of
masons, others of soldiers, etc. Certainly nature is not so uniform. It is
custom then which does this, for it constrains nature. But sometimes nature
gains the ascendancy and preserves man's instinct, in spite of all custom,
good or bad.

98. Bias leading to error.--It is a deplorable thing to see all men
deliberating on means alone, and not on the end. Each thinks how he will
acquit himself in his condition but as for the choice of condition, or of
country, chance gives them to us.

It is a pitiable thing to see so many Turks, h